Relics
by Gearworks
Summary: Chance and Chaos cause Harry to travel a little further than the headmaster expected or wanted
.oOo.

a pilots lament at the forgotten cantina

.oOo.

"Had a cozy job, just flying ships for the company. New designs, just built, or ran supply runs the rest of the time."

"Here I was just testing the latest company freighter, and the warp drive went crazy before it went down"

"If the readings are right, system went to .01 speed just before it died."

hack-cough ".01? and you lived?" sputters his 'old' friend looking at him in astonishment

"Worse, that was the best it could measure, yep I survived, it lasted a tenth of a second before the drive failed and died"

"Luckily the drive died before the gravity compensators did."

.

"I ended up near an outer rim starsystem but far past the system's outside edge, drive out, com out, and no spares surviving"

"takes a week to repair the drive but I only get it to a tenth of the original speed"

"took me a good two months to get back to local space, and when I get back"

"the company fires me, without even hearing the report on the sabotage"

that caught the attention of his rogue 'friend', "sabotage?"

"Ya sabotage, turns out it was a power play for advancement in the upper ranks of the company"

"Someone did not like it being based on a warship from the last jedi war"

"the 'malfunction' was being used to out the promoter of the ship, the ship and me"

"someone was manipulating the situation to get themselves promoted or one of their brown-nosers"

"As I hit regular space coming in from the rim, company sent a 'recovery team' to grab the ship, and give me walking papers",

"possibly lethal ones, luckily I was away as they grabbed the ship, and they left me on a out of the way agro planet till I could 'find' a lift"

"then i found out..."

"what...?"

"need a new drink, this ones running on fumes."

'sigh', "barkeep, another round for the two of us," mutters his collegue, waving to the bartender

"ahh, that's the good stuff, where was I? oh yea... sadly I've been blacklisted as a test pilot"

"owch"

"I was at the scrapyard to see about a rebuild to fly till I found another job at another company, then the cards went my way"

"Good?"

"Very! I got lucky."

"Lucky?"

"placed a bid on the next ship to come in, cheap greedy bastards them yard dogs, you have to take anything coming in.",

"and keep bidding blind till you brib'em or get what you want, took the first slot available on the bid board and 'got' a jinxed ship"

"T-the same one?" his old friend stutters, downing his drink and signaling for another

"Exact same. Even had the droid parts from the sabotage droids I dismantled, they were still locked in the security closet."

"ship got labeled as a jinxed ship, and was sent to the same breaker scrapyard, they did not want the performance report seeing light."

"Breaker info stated it was a 'lost' ship, reclaimed after being a pilot killer, seems they had a 'few' problems dealing with my repairs."

"no denying it was a mess to clean up, but I had all their repairs to fix also, the one astro droid onboard was the final pilot to the original test launch-bay."

"three teams went splat before it was hauled back to the test hangar, named the 'white elephant' whatever that is, and tossed."

"aahh", downing another gulp of his drink

"but I had full copy of the spec info, even before they 'scrubbed' the systems, even had the parts their 'recovery crews' brought ."

"Parts and other leftovers to work with, brought the bird back to working shape. Original design was a tough design."

.

"What's with the kid?"

"He's my luck, of the two months I was gone, first week was repairs, then another few days warp limping to the closest system."

"Found a pre-space planet almost at correlia's level, no real space industry but high population, lots of green and water, but had a planet level datanet all the same."

"Picked a point and landed near a sensor picked tech spot, sensors said they had the tech for repairs, but damn it was a party zone."

"As I looked for the closest repair depo I hit several parties, a major blackheart had died and they were celibrating him getting shafted,"

"wandering back from the third or fourth party, found myself in droid produced mass housing, you know all the same?" looking at his drinking buddy

as his drinking buddy nods, "found him in a doorway, at near dawn."

"Read the letter with him, and knocked for whoever in the house, what greeted me rudely and with insults I would swear was a half breed",

"ugliest human I have seen yet, thought he was half gammorian, no joking, his wife, the kin to this boy?, looked half kamoian"

"You're joking right?" asks his friend

"Here you can watch", pulling out a holo-comm, sliding in a chip, playing the recording, "had my datapad recording, so I would not get lost"

"They read the letter then gave me the kid, wanting nothing to do with him or me, called us both freaks, closing the door and locking us out",

"man, was I cursing my jinxed luck at that time"

.

"The wierdest thing, was after I 'recieved' the kid, everythig started to go right."

"Found the repair parts needed, Found supplies, Even found one of the wierdest places you could imagine at the major city nearby."

"I would call it almost a minature of one of the noble levels of corucsant, formal robes everywhere."

"No tech at all though, it was the strangest area, all these nobles, yet not one droid or servitor."

"Used some gold dukats from one of my forays to the colonies area, bought the materials needed, and headed back."

"one hung over half-drunk at the bookstore, actually got the kids name right and gave me a bag of books to cellibrate, books!"

"old style paper and leather covers, in a carry bag, talk about throwbacks, not a single datapad in sight" shaking his head in disgust

.

"Sadly as I mentioned, when we left, we limped to an agro rim world then when the ship was taken, we were not there, lost the ship and a guard droid."

"but...", moaned the drinking buddy who was having a hard time focusing due to the booze in his system

"Me, an astromech droid and the kiddo managed to bum a ride back to more tech'd space, made a few friends, got an invite, and recovered the Screwball."

"Fun part is the 'invite' lets me point out some inconvienent slaver groups to parties that will not let them get away with it, like both the jedi and republic say they don't, yet do nothing."

"Those stories are for another time though, will they be entertaining? possibly."

"If you have a good story next time, I will provide the booze, got some good stuff called firewhisky at those three or four parties i crashed on the kids homeworld."

"See you Karl.", as he pulls on his hat and shouldering the bratpack holding the sleeping kiddo

"Don't let the jinx get you Casca.", replies back the crusty elder

.

.oOo.


End file.
